Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

Capt. Tracy Ehrenberg
March 14, 2003
Cabo San Lucas - Saltwater Fishing Report

March 7th to 13th, 2003

BILLFISH: The biggest story this week, happened on the last day of this report & it happens to be the biggest fish of the year. Jeff Patton, from Chicago was fishing 40 miles straight out from Land’s End, when a monster fish took the green & yellow lure being trolled by “Bad Market”, surprisingly just 45 minutes later, he was able to land the fish on 50 lb test line, which proved to weight 710 lbs. A couple of days before, captain Tony Nungaray, of “Felina”, reported hooking a fish that was on the line for an hour and a half, that he estimated to be over 1000 lbs – Tony was 35 miles out from the lighthouse and had only had the lures in the water for a couple of minutes; he described the fish as having a girth of three feet – he should know last year he caught an 871 lb’er. This all sounds wonderful, but most of the week it was tough going. This period started out well, with boats catching one to three marlin each, plus the odd dorado and tuna here and there, but within a couple of days it began to dwindle, noticeably on the 10th, 11th & 12th, when hardly any marlin were caught and we had quite a few “skunks”. Boats were still heading up to the Punta Gorda and Destiladeres area, but many times it was a long journey for nothing. “Adriana” did well though for Ty Phillips from Irvine, Texas, releasing three stripers and a sailfish on the 7th. The Owens & Huneke party did well the following day aboard “Valerie” with four striped marlin releases. It was just after the slow down that boats decided to try the other way and returned to the Pacific, where they found fair to good amounts of tuna and dorado. Sticking to the Pacific at the close of this report, marlin were again located – Joseph Harold from Massachusetts caught and released an amazing NINE STRIPED MARLIN, aboard “Sr. Moment”. An interesting story that was not mentioned last week, was that of Neil Sorenson from Post Falls, Idaho. Neil was fishing aboard “Karina” recently and was lucky enough to catch an approx 140 lb striped marlin. As the fish was brought to the leader the crew noticed that it already had plenty of tackle already attached to it, apart from theirs, and long-line tackle at that. The fish had a huge hook, still with swivel, in the corner of it’s mouth and about 10 feet of 500 lb line, wrapped around it’s body. It had been carrying these trappings for a while, as there were sea snails around the hook and in several places along the line. The crew deftly removed all tackle and released the extremely lucky marlin……lucky to have survived a long liner and to have met with a conservation-minded crew and angler. Pisces anglers caught a total of fifty-nine striped marlin this week, all released, as well as a lone sailfish. Our overall catch success rate for all species combined was seventy-five percent. The marlin catch success rate was forty-five percent.

OTHER SPECIES: Boats after marlin picked up the odd dorado here and there on the Cortez side as well as the occasional tuna, but once they headed to the Pacific they did better. Dorado were caught every day mostly in one’s and two’s and less commonly up to six, in the 145 to 30 lb class. We had a couple of good days on tuna, which was very welcome after poor fishing – best day was March 12th, when “Tracy Ann” was the first to find the school eighteen miles out from the Old Lighthouse, they managed to boat 13 and a dorado, other – boats averaged five to seven. Inshore lots of sierra, some roosters and snappers, as well as skipjacks.

LOCATION: Punta Gorda, Destdiladeres,Old Lighthouse 18-30 miles, Land’s End 15 to 40 miles.

WEATHER CONDITIONS: Days mixed between sunny and overcast, seas calm to moderate on Cortez, a little rougher on the Pacific.

AVERAGE WATER TEMP. 70-73 F

BEST LURES: Live bait, purple/black, green/yellow.

BASED ON THE CATCHES OF PISCES FLEET BY TRACY EHRENBERG



Tracy Ehrenberg www.piscessportfishing.com

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